Bungle Bungles - Nothern Part

Woke up to the sound of jabbering neighbours just before 5am. Made a take away coffee, jumped in the car and off we went. Directions were clear pass the visitors centre then look for signs. Conversation was flowing despite the early hour and so was the drive until Kat started to question where we are going… opps… turn of to the Northern walks was before the tourist centre and not after…. Well that added about 20km extra than we needed to do…
Anyway, we backtracked and eventually rocked up to the right place - The Bloodwoods. The plan was to do the Mini Palms Gorge first, then come back to the Bloodwoods and drive to Echidna. Once we figured out that we could actually walk from the Bloodwoods to Echidna without driving we changed the plan and headed to Echidna. The walk was very pretty, we were surrounded by bobbles of spinifex grass, grevilias, eucalyptus trees with white trunks, flowering wattle trees and magnificent red/orange ranges that looked completely differently to the domes from yesterday. The surrounds were reminding us of the similar nature and great times we had a few years back in Katherine.
It was an easy walk and we stopped at the shaded spot to have a breakfast, just to continue with full bellies to the Echidna Chasm - which was really pretty. The best part was we had it all to ourselves. The sun was supposed to cross around 11.30 and light up the very narrow section of the Chasm. We could see half being lit up all in gold and decided that it will do and as the 11th hour was approaching and we were expecting groups of tourists that could spoil the experience we got, so we started our return.
And as we did, we passed groups of people all heading there to see the sun phenomenon.
While we were in the Echidna we also walked to the Osmand Lookout that provided fantastic views. It also informed us that some of the mountain ranges we could see were up to 4 times older than the Bungle Bungle Ranges. Some old as 1.6 billion ears - it is hard to comprehend and imagine…
After we seen it all at Echidna we headed back via The Escarpment track back towards the Mini Palms Gorge. On the way there we stopped at the same shady spot to replenish some energy with lunch. The trail condition became a little more challenging once we got on the Mini Palms Gorge track. We pretty much walked on the bottom of a dried up creek, on the stones. The track may have not been the nicest walk but the surroundings were spectacular, we loved all the Livistona Palms we were surrounded by. And how cool that they grow so high on the ranges. To someone’s unhappiness, there was some rock hopping/climbing in the last sections. It was hot 🥵 but powered by the lunch and vision that it is the last walk for sometime we reached the end, which in my opinion was more breathtaking than the Echidna Chasm. It was simply wow! Yet again, there was no humans in site so we had it all for ourselves - how very special. To our surprise we didn’t see a single toad on any of the Northern walks.
After we finished all the walks except the Homestead Valley walk, we stopped by the tourist centre where Kat cooled herself down with an ice cream. As I was waiting for her, I bumped into my old colleague who lives in Denmark and sells apples at the Albany Farmer’s market - the world is small.
We arrived to our home, I made us some poached eggs for dinner, Kat did some laundry washing, I also managed to lie in my hammock and listen to the birds - lovely afternoon.
Kat also spotted two barking owls sitting in the tree in our spot. They were asleep and at times cuddling to each other. We heard them early on the morning barking, and it was nice to actually see them.
These last three days here ware just perfect, we loved pretty much everything about this place and would come back anytime. It somehow feels very special and we feel very grateful for the opportunity to visit this place.Meer informatie